


Catch of the Day

by Eremji (handsfullofdust)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Enthusiastic Consentacles, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Hot Tub Sex, M/M, Magical Predicament, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Mission, Steve Rogers Gets Hit with Magic, Tentacle Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 15:06:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handsfullofdust/pseuds/Eremji
Summary: Bucky’s not laughing at him, not where Steve can see, but after Thor gives Steve an appraising look, scratching his beard absently, and says with usual cheer, “You’re most fortunate. This enchantment is only temporary,” Bucky makes sure he’s not in Steve’s direct line of sight.It's about par for the course that Steve Rogers get himself in all manner of trouble. A couple extra limbs are really no big deal.





	Catch of the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time eidheann and I had a conversation about consentacles.
> 
> I said, "Hmm." And then, "Did you know male cephalopods have a [reproductive organ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hectocotylus) in one of their arms?" Science. And so here we are.
> 
> Literally just some smut. In this house, we ignore Infinity War until we can cope with it.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://eremji.tumblr.com), [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/Eremji) – and now [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Eremji)!

Bucky’s not laughing at him, not where Steve can see, but after Thor gives Steve an appraising look, scratching his beard absently, and says with usual cheer, “You’re most fortunate. This enchantment is only temporary,” Bucky makes sure he’s not in Steve’s direct line of sight.  
  
Natasha leans against the kitchen island, malingering while the rest of their rag tag little company clears off to do something better with their time than gawk. Chin in her hand, with a kind of stony-faced thoughtfulness that Bucky secretly still finds a little intimidating, she asks “Do you think we need to keep you wet?”  
  
Steve, who hasn’t yet mastered walking with his new legs, but has about a century of experience with acting put upon when the situation calls for it, slithers right off the kitchen stool and lands sullenly on the tile at Natasha’s feet.  
  
“I think I’ll be just fine, but thanks,” Steve says, terse and about as irritable as Bucky remembers him at a third of the size. Natasha folds her arms across her chest and looks down at him, one eyebrow arched as if his ability to self-asses is up for debate.  
  
“You need a hand, pal?” Bucky asks, stepping between them before anyone can say something foolish. “Might be best to wait this one out somewhere private.”  
  
“Thanks, Buck,” Steve says. Now on the floor and no longer draped over the edge of the stool, he seems to have some difficulty arranging his new configuration of limbs. “We might have a logistics problem.”  
  
He turns with a slick, whispery noise, and Bucky gets a full view of the _situation_ , which is what they’ve all politely taken to calling it.  
  
Steve is no longer strictly human, at least not from the waist down. Bucky – very privately – finds Steve’s new set of gams to be pretty stellar. All eight of them. It reminds Bucky a little of Creature from the Black Lagoon, which he’s still pretty pissed off about missing when it was still showing live at the pictures. At Steve’s bare belly, his human parts end, transitioning to slick, soft-looking tentacles. High up, between each one, is a delicate membrane of flesh that reminds Bucky of a bat’s wing.  
  
Natasha is looking at them both like she's expecting something to happen, which isn’t all that new, but Bucky looks at the slanted way Steve props himself up, and the downward set of Steve’s mouth, and decides this particular spectacle is off the table for the evening’s entertainment. “You might want to go find something more interesting to do, _Nachynka_.”  
  
“Whatever you like, _Koschei_.” Natasha scowls, fun ruined, but she goes without further complaint, leaving them alone with Steve’s problem.  
  
“Thanks, Buck,” Steve says, making an effort to take up as little space as possible, even though Bucky’s fairly certain it's futile. Bucky hasn't got a good look at just how long Steve is, but if Bucky was pressed into giving an answer, fifteen feet might be a reasonable guess. “This is a little weird.”  
  
Bucky says, “Pal, after what we’ve been through, this one is easy, so if you thank me one more time, I’m gonna have to knock your noggin in.”  
  
Steve’s smile is golden, broad and soft and warm, and Bucky thinks it's all too rare these days. “How you wanna work this?”  
  
“You want to be the damsel in distress or a sack of fish?” Bucky asks, holding out his arms.  
  
“Don't think I’d make a very pretty dame with a nose like this. How about you give me a boost and we never talk about it again?” Steve asks. Then, a little shame-faced, “Maybe to the garden suite? I think she was right about the water.”  
  
“I’ll never tell,” Bucky promises, just to see the corners of Steve’s eyes crinkle. Steve’s mellowed a little in his age, but a little conspiracy and mischief between the two of them still gets him going like old times.  
  
It's really nothing at all to haul Steve up over his shoulders, piggyback, like when they were both still spindly-limbed and scrappy. Steve is like a sun-warm brick wall at Bucky’s back, and then he says, “Let me –”  
  
Bucky doesn't really mean to yelp when the first tentacle closes around his upper thigh, but Steve is saying, “Sorry – sorry, I can’t –” while Bucky protests, “A little close to the goods there, Steve,” and then suddenly there’s a tentacle that's got a viselike grip on him right under his ass cheek – then two, three, coiled around him like a snake, Steve’s breath hot behind his ear.  
  
“Can we just –” Steve starts, then stops, and Bucky can practically feel him withering away in embarrassment, “– never talk about this again?”  
  
“Sure, pal. Just hang on tight. I don't want to close anything in the elevator door,” Bucky says, a little shaky because the way he’s being gripped is giving him the kind of thoughts Sister Mary Michael would have done a lot more than make Bucky write lines for.  
  
Stark has several guest quarters, most of them lavishly spacious and rarely used. Steve and Bucky have a cramped little two-bedroom condo back in Midtown, close to Central Park, partially because Steve likes to run it, but mostly because Steve wouldn't have picked such a nice place all by himself. Bucky had swallowed down the price tag and let FRIDAY handle closing on the kind of real estate he never thought he'd be lucky enough to own. The future’s not all that bad, even if advertising seems to have gotten way out of hand, but it's a bit of a hike back to their place and they can't exactly take the subway with Steve looking like he should be on a restaurant menu.  
  
Six floors up, they step into what Bucky finds to be one of Stark’s more repelling displays of wealth, but they're stuck with it because the most prominent feature is a very private, very secluded balcony with what everyone else calls an infinity pool and Bucky just calls a damn fine piece of architecture. A hundred years old, and Bucky is still surprised at the kind of things enough money and some clever engineering can buy a man.  
  
He pries off his shoes just inside the door, because trodding all over the white carpet, even in new sneakers, always makes him feel like he’s about to get fussed at by his ma for leaving a mess.  
  
Steve barely has time to ask, “What are you doing?” before Bucky walks right into the pool, clothes and all. The water is chilly, and he’s still a little grimy from their tussle with Amora, so he don't see any harm in it.  
  
“No reason for you to sit in exile,” Bucky says. Steve’s still got an arm looped around Bucky’s neck and the length of him coils and tangles with Bucky’s limbs. The muscular flesh squeezes tight, high up Bucky’s thigh, and he ain't so sure he minds. “Getting a little bit handsy there, Stevie.”  
  
“Christ, sorry, Buck,” Steve mutters, and disentangles himself, which involves a highly concerted effort to unwind about six feet of slick, soft limbs from around Bucky's legs and torso. “They didn't exactly come with a user manual.”  
  
Bucky flexes his left arm, the plates shifting, and then slings it over the side of the pool as he settles next to Steve. “Might know a little about that.”  
  
Steve visibly relaxes. “You think I'd just about be used to having a different body than what I started with.”  
  
“Just because you’re a slab of beef now instead of jerky, don't mean you gotta like being the catch of the day,” Bucky says, elbowing Steve gently. “I’d trade places. All I’ve got is a lump on the head to show for my efforts.”  
  
That seems to work, because Steve bites back a smile, eyes bright. “Your whole head is a lump, Buck. God, who would’ve _thought_?”  
  
“Enlist,” Bucky says, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. “Fight Nazis, liberate Europe, become a seafood dish.”  
  
“You’re such an asshole,” Steve says warmly. He slides down into the water, his lower half uncoiling into the pool, and his shoulder is pushed right up against Bucky’s, easy and seamless, almost exactly like a thousand summer days before.  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky says, tipping his head back. “But I make it look good.”  
  
Days like this are rare, and Bucky basks in it. Even if Steve looks more like a sea creature from the waist down, Bucky can't find it in his heart to be particularly put out by how they've got a little scrap of peaceful privacy to themselves, just like old times. They're privy to the kind of view a man could get spoiled on, and the summer in the city stretches out flat and hot and endless, the sunshine leaving Bucky warm through and through.  
  
“Hey, Buck?” Steve asks. “Can I ask you a question?”  
  
He almost asks, _I_ _don't know, can you_ , but he sees the look on Steve’s face and thinks better. “Yeah, Stevie?” Bucky shifts his bulk, slinging an arm over his head lazily.  
  
“Everything okay with us, Buck?” Steve’s face is turned towards Bucky’s, but his gaze is on some fixed point in the distance, a frown creasing his brow, mouth turned down.  
  
Bucky doesn't hesitate, because it doesn't matter what happens, where they are, or what they've done, he and Steve are like caramel and apples, timeless, good on their own, but better together. “Rock solid, pal.” But everything don't feel quite right, so he follows up, “You got something on your mind?”  
  
“Can’t help but think you might just be happier back in Wakanda,” Steve says. “Away from all this.”  
  
Bucky snorts, sprawling out. He does like Wakanda, and he's got a little piece of land there that he can go back to any time he likes, raise some goats, maybe fuss over a chicken coop. One day, maybe he will, when he's sure Steve will come with him. Until then, he's perfectly happy doing exactly what he always wanted to do – taking care of Steve Rogers’ fool head. “Are you kidding? And miss you getting turned into sushi by an alien witch? You’re completely off your rocker.”  
  
“You won't be saying that when I get the hang of these things,” Steve says, straight-faced, even though Bucky can see Steve's smile creeping in at the corners of his eyes. “Talking pure garbage, Barnes. I ought to have you sent down.”  
  
“Gonna lock me up, Captain Rogers?” Bucky asks, with the same kind of easy insolence that used to get Dugan and Jones going about how Bucky better be glad it was Steve that they’d put in charge, otherwise Bucky’d be tossed in the stockade – or worse, traded out to the Navy. “You ain't got a leg to stand on.”  
  
Steve lunges the short distance towards Bucky, laughing, and bowls him deeper into the water. Bucky sees it coming, but he don't make much effort to duck it, letting Steve haul him under until they’re both laughing and sputtering, his ears and nose full of water and Steve’s hair curling around his face. Steve gets over him, pinning him up against the side of the pool, wet and messy and laughing.  
  
The tentacles fix themselves around Bucky’s legs, and they’re both close enough that Bucky can feel Steve’s chest rising and falling with each breath. Steve looks so damn pleased with himself that Bucky doesn't think of it before he reaches out and strokes the soft underside of one of the grasping limbs, curious about it. It's cool and firm to the touch, and Bucky’s face heats when it curls around his wrist and Steve makes a noise like Bucky’s got his hand somewhere a lot less polite.  
  
“Jesus,” Steve says, breathless, cheeks pink. He’s got a look like Bucky’s never seen on him before, mouth open and soft. He looks like sex, like someone’s just slid right home up into his body and if Bucky wasn't thinking about it before, he damn sure is now. “Jesus, Buck – you –”  
  
Bucky ain't a saint. He’s considered that strip of pretty skin below Steve’s navel more than a few times, the way his hips dip just a little when he's on his back. Bucky is less conflicted about what he finds appealing these days, but it's always felt so futile because his and Steve’s history is already tangled up in a too-close jumble of confusing attachment that Bucky tried unsuccessfully to burn out under the Wakandan sun.  
  
It ain’t like it used to be back in Brooklyn, just two young fellas trying to figure life out, just trying to get by. Bucky’s head is sometimes full of nightmares and Steve ain't sick now, and there's a lot of time in the modern world for a man to sit and think about things to do with his liberty. The way Steve is looking at him is sharp and real and present, with the entire weight of their history leaning on it.  
  
“Sorry,” Bucky says belatedly, staring up into Steve's downturned face, but he can't exactly let go, because inappropriate or not, the appendages have a mind of their own.  
  
“It's – fine, but – it's like –” Steve looks Bucky up and down, his expression struggling back towards neutral. “Like someone hit me with a tuning fork, maybe. I guess you were right about waiting this out.”  
  
Steve looks at him, and maybe that’s all it ever took; the lines of Steve’s face soften, and Bucky wants to touch him, and the thing that's been building for months, years, decades finally bursts in Bucky’s chest.  
  
He’s not sure where his better judgment went, maybe magicked away with Steve’s real legs, momentarily nonexistent, but Bucky asks, low and private, “Want me to do it again?”  
  
Steve exhales explosively, the moment happening in slow motion for Bucky, the way it feels when he’s firing a gun; Steve’s blue eyes widen, pupils contracting and then expanding, mouth parting so Bucky can see his pretty teeth and that sharp tongue of his. When Steve says, “Yeah,” it looks like it surprises him just as much as it does Bucky.  
  
“Tell me if you don't like it,” Bucky murmurs, and pushes himself up against Steve’s torso, his sodden clothes clinging, breath coming in stuttered, nervous little bursts that make him feel light-headed. Or maybe that's Steve, too, making him feel like his heart might crack into pieces.  
  
He slides his hand up the underside of the limb, gaze fixed on Steve’s face to gauge his reaction. The appendage coils, and when Bucky’s fingers caress right up near the thin, billowy membrane, Steve makes a soft, breathless sound.  
  
“You okay with this, Stevie?” Bucky murmurs. He plants a tentative, close-mouthed kiss on the bare, damp curve of Steve’s shoulder, trying to gauge Steve’s reaction.  
  
“What – what are you getting out of this?” Steve asks, red as a cherry tomato.  
  
Bucky eyes the length and shape of the limb, and says with a slow smile, “ _Out_ of it? Nothing, but I could think of a few things I’d like to get _in_ me.”  
  
“Buck, what –” he starts, then stops, and Bucky can see the moment it clicks. And then he's got his mouth on Bucky’s neck, wet and soft with a hint of teeth, and he’s undulating, except instead of his hips, it's his whole lower half, wrapping himself around Bucky. It's a little unfamiliar, but it's still Steve, and his sleek new skin still feels just as good right up against Bucky’s. Steve works a hand beneath Bucky’s shirt and squeezes the curve of his pectoral, thumb grazing Bucky’s nipple. It never did take Steve Rogers long to make up his mind about something. “Is this good, Buck?”  
  
“Fuck, Stevie,” Bucky says, and he never thought it was a question he’d have the chance to answer, but the way he’s got Steve squeezing him, all around and below, feels unexpectedly good. “Like you wouldn't believe.”  
  
Steve’s everywhere at once, both hands prying away Bucky’s wet clothes, his limbs caressing Bucky’s body, seeking out the soft places between Bucky's legs and under his arms. Bucky helps him out, undoes his buttons and shoves out of his pants while Steve peels Bucky’s shirt right off his back. Clothes abandoned to the bottom of the pool, Steve coils tighter around Bucky and plants sharp, biting little kisses along Bucky’s jaw and throat and chest that make Bucky feel like one big exposed nerve. Everywhere that Steve touches him feels good.  
  
Bucky pulls Steve’s head up, hand in his hair, holding him firm because it don't seem like Steve’s in much of a mood for being handled with kid gloves, squirming snakelike in his grasp. He kisses like he wants to swallow Steve up, open-mouthed, starving seven decades for the taste of him.  
  
Having the extra limbs is an advantage that Steve doesn't seem to be shy about using. The slender tip of one appendage works its way up the curve of Bucky’s ass and, Bucky, who could never be accused of not being a man of science, asks, “That feel good enough you could get your jollies off, Stevie?”  
  
“Don’t know,” Steve says. He digs his fingers into Bucky’s sides and makes a soft, helpless sound when Bucky reaches for the probing limb and grips it like he would himself, jacking it experimentally. Bucky may not have any practical knowledge of Steve’s current configuration, but he always did like a little hands-on experimentation. Steve's eyelids are slitted, mouth open, like his jaw is too heavy with the pleasure of it. “Maybe, yeah. Maybe.”  
  
Bucky rolls his hips up, his cock sliding easy and sweet in one of the soft gaps between Steve’s limbs. One curls around it, squeezing, and it's like having it trapped in the sweetest, slickest mouth he could have ever imagined. “God, Stevie, you look like a damn dream.”  
  
“You ain't put off?” Steve jostles him, but Bucky can see he’s just as interested. Feels it in the way he tightens everything around Bucky, viselike, not so hard to be uncomfortable, but strong, good.  
  
“Stevie, there ain't a part of you that I don't like, now and always,” Bucky says, and bites down on that brushstroke-perfect curve of Steve’s lower lip. He’s always looked good to Bucky, never mind the way things have changed for the both, temporary or not.  
  
When he breaks away, the way Steve is looking at him is – God, Bucky might have given up all the drinking and dancing and girls in the world if Steve had ever looked at him like he is now. Like it hurts him not to reach out to Bucky and take what he wants, every one of his scrappy, wonderful, heartbreaking feelings laid out naked on his pretty face for Bucky to see.  
  
“Buck –” he starts, his voice cracking, but this cart has been rumbling along the tracks for too long for either of them to slow it down. Bucky kisses the sound out of Steve's mouth, groans when Steve pulls him closer. Steve smells cool and salty, and Bucky nips at him from jaw to throat, and it's like tasting the ocean tide right out of the hollow between his collar bones.  
  
Bucky inhales sharply as Steve coils right up under his balls and behind. One hand digging into Steve’s shoulder, he asks, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”  
  
Steve gives him a little squeeze all around, and it's a little exciting, being trapped in that iron grip like that, because whatever witchery got laid on Steve's head, it didn't diminish how damn strong he is. “Depends on what you’re thinking.”  
  
“That maybe you could put that to good use somewhere,” Bucky murmurs, mouthing back up Steve's neck and taking Steve’s earlobe between his teeth. He wants to mark Steve up, get him good, give Steve something sweet and sharp to remember him by.  
  
Steve makes a shuddery little noise, stifled against Bucky’s neck, and bites down on the scarred tissue right above the seam of Bucky’s arm. The sensation sends a surprising jolt of pleasure straight to Bucky’s cock. “Yeah, yeah sure, Buck,” he groans into Bucky's skin, “just tell me?”  
  
“Come on, put it in me, Stevie,” Bucky says, more than ready for this. They can take it real slow later, if Steve wants to go again, if he'll have Bucky, but right now Bucky wants to feel him.  
  
The thin tip breaches his body, slick and easy. It's a kind of fullness he ain't never felt before. He’s fingered himself a handful of times after doing a little reading, lubed himself up and jackknifed at an awkward angle until he saw stars, but Steve pushes in, one inch, two inches, three, there's nothing in the ballpark. Steve’s mouth is soft and plush against Bucky’s, and he draws the kind of shaking, shuddering breaths that let Bucky know he ain't the only one affected.  
  
Steve checks in with a breathy, “Too deep?” and Bucky mutely shakes his head. He can't contain the rumble of sound when Steve pushes in further than he might if he were normally equipped. Bucky can feel the firm curve of Steve, sliding up into his body, the way it curves into him when Bucky bears down on him.  
  
“Feels good,” Bucky says, when Steve hesitates. He wiggles down onto Steve, who groans. “Come on, Stevie, fill me right up.”  
  
Steve makes a soft sound and hauls Bucky upwards, so that the length of his cock is crushed against Steve’s sternum, one of Steve’s arms under his ass and the fingers of his other hand probing where their bodies fit together. He teases the rim of Bucky’s ass, testing it, and before Bucky can catch his bearings, Steve's mouth closes around him, swallowing him down while he fills him up.  
  
The plates on Bucky’s arm flex and shift involuntarily, something that hasn't happened in years, pure reflex, tied right to his brain stem. He tries not to jerk his hips but fails and sinks back, driving the length of Steve’s appendage deep enough that he can feel it in his belly. He makes a helpless noise, because the way Steve strokes over the inside of him makes his legs feel weak, the triple threat of fullness, being stretched, and the drag of friction across that sweet spot inside him that's almost too much.  
  
The way Steve looks up at him is scorching, and even more amazing is the way he pulls off of Bucky with a _pop_ and asks, voice already raspy from taking Bucky deep, “Do you want another one in you?” His eyes are unfocused, blue and beautiful, and Bucky cups his face in both hands, and Bucky thinks he could look at Steve forever and not get tired of it.  
  
_“Yes_ ,” Bucky says, because he didn't know he could want more until Steve asked, but he does now, needs it. He wants to take everything Steve’s got to give him, wants Steve to wrap him up and take him inside and out, to forget where one of them ends and the other begins. He's full, so full, all the way up, the warmth in his chest swelling with the deep curl of Steve inside him and it's not new, to feel so much for Steve.  
  
His heart’s always beat time with Steve’s, always, and even when he didn't know himself, Steve could say his name and it was like a flare in the darkness, brief and blinding. Steve is saying his name now, again and again, a quiet litany of affection, like he used to pray at Mass, low and desperate as he pushes into Bucky's body with a second appendage. It's big, bigger than anything, and he bends down and kisses the sweet _oh, Bucky_ , and _please God_ ’s right out of Steve’s mouth.  
  
The other limbs curl up Bucky's back, around his ribs, coiling at his shoulders, caressing, enveloping him. Steve thrusts, and thrusts, and Bucky pushes down to meet him, everything electrifying, burning, perfectly engineered to drive Bucky right to the brink and hold him at the sharp precipice of pleasure.  
  
They melt into each other and Steve’s big paw of a hand wraps around Bucky's cock and it's unfair how fast Bucky’s orgasm rushes up on him, much too quick for having to walk through Hell to get back to Steve. One, two, three, six, nine, and Bucky is too far gone to hold back. He’s been dead and lived again, and it's nothing like the sudden, electric culmination of everything he’s never let himself think about. It hits him like a sack of bricks, square in the chest, and he's so full he’s afraid he might burst when it finally takes Steve.  
  
But it's still real when he starts to come down, so be just holds on to Steve – because now he _can_ , and he doesn't have any intention of letting go. Steve uncouples them with a full body shudder, and plasters himself to Bucky, breathing hard.  
  
“Hey Buck?” Steve asks, arm draped around Bucky's neck.  
  
“Yeah, Stevie?” Bucky asks, afraid for a wild second that Steve will want to take everything back, that he doesn't feel the same way, but –  
  
Steve is shaking, and it takes Bucky a second to realize he's laughing. “Let's not wait seventy years to do this again?”  


*

When Bucky returns from the debriefing, Steve is sprawled in the bed, sleeping in the sunshine, all four natural limbs akimbo. His mouth is open, jaw slack. Bucky reaches down and slides his hand over the knob of Steve’s bare ankle, then up the back of his calf and to the curve of his ass. When the bed dips under Bucky's knee, Steve makes a soft sound, and an even softer one when Bucky lays kisses up his spine.  
  
“Buck?” Steve murmurs, reaching back for him.  
  
“Shh, lazybones,” Bucky says, kissing the strong wing of Steve’s shoulder blade. “Relax.”  
  
“Am,” Steve says, then mutters something indistinct into his pillow. When Bucky makes a querying noise, he asks, “Where'd you go?”  
  
“Handled the meeting. Nothing new on the agenda,” Bucky says, rolling into the bed beside Steve. “Seems we earned ourselves a little leave, Captain Rogers.”  
  
Steve shifts in the blankets and smiles up at Bucky without opening his eyes. “That so?”  
  
“Sure is,” Bucky says, and laughs when Steve seizes him, sweeping him down onto the bed. “Watch it, pal. I'm a fragile old man in my twilight years.”  
  
“Sister Mary Michael would have you writing lines for that lie,” Steve says, and leans over Bucky, taking him in. He runs one thumb along the scarred seam of Bucky's body, part man, part machine. There’s no magic spell they know to put Bucky back together again – his body or his head – but Bucky don’t mind so much. “You should sit for me.”  
  
Pretending he don't know what Steve's asking for, he nudges Steve with his leg. “But I'm already laying about, pal.”  
  
Steve puts his ear to Bucky’s chest, and Bucky knows Steve’s listening to his heart, because Bucky did the same thing to Steve a hundred times every winter, when it was just them and a few dollars and the impossibility of the future. “We’ve got plenty of time for it later.”  
  
Bucky runs his fingers through Steve’s hair. His world has opened from the narrow fire escape they haunted in Brooklyn, from the cramped walk-ups and laundry in the alleys, into an improbably vast universe full of magic and science and layers of wonderful, frightening things, but Steve –  
  
– Steve is a constant, and when Bucky presses his fingers into the hollow of Steve's wrist, no longer bird-boned, but tougher, bigger, ready to fight a universe they didn't know existed, he keeps time by the beat of his heart. The sound of Steve's breath swells and recedes, over and over, and Bucky closes his eyes and imagines the summer tide rolling in from the Atlantic.


End file.
